My Writings. My Thoughts.
30-something lists
// January 24th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Blog
In honor of my 30th birthday (Roman XXX, Binary 11110, Babylonian <<<, Hexadecimal 1E) I have made three lists of ten items.
List 1 – Ten things I have enjoyed since my first experience of them:
- Drawing/Coloring (crayons, pencils, markers, chalk, etc.)
- Cartoons
- Fruit snacks
- Legos
- Computers/Electronics/Tinkering
- Italian and Mexican food
- Paintball
- Romantic comedies
- Music (performing and listening)
- Nature
List 2 – Ten people (or groups) that have changed the way I think about life, the universe, and everything:
- God/Bible
- Cori Rose
- My family
- My friends
- 4-year old Sunday school students
- Teachers/Professors (Mr. Tuchscherer, Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Kendrick, Mr. and Mrs. Robertson, Mrs. Broyles, Mrs. Mallow, Mr. Lampman, Mrs. Faulkner, Ms. Simpson, Mr. Spurgeon, Mr. Nash, Mr. Mills, Mr. Dary, Professor Coakley, Professor Dibrell, Professor Lawton, Professor McAlexander, Professor Craig, Professor Tyran)
- Co-Workers
- Authors (Douglas Adams, A.W. Tozer, C.S. Lewis, Patrick M. Morley, J.P. Moreland, Robert K. Greenleaf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dave Ramsey, G.K. Chesterton, Lee Strobel, Jeremy Keith, Donald Norman, Doug Fields, Ravi Zacharias, Charles Spurgeon, editors and contributors to GQ magazine)
- Celebrities
- Middle and High school students
List 3 – Ten things I still have difficulty with after three decades of life:
- Consistent prayer, quiet time, and Bible study
- Drama
- Flip turns
- Cleaning (Laundry and dishes especially)
- Personal finance
- Organisation
- Exercising consistently
- Buying groceries/meal planning
- Sleeping (or at least going to bed at a decent hour)
- Finishing personal projects
New Year’s Inspiration
// December 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog
A post over at Smashing Magazine has inspired me to set a unique resolution for the upcoming year: design something every day for a year. I am hoping that by setting aside some time to just be creative every day that I will also become more diligent at setting aside time for other daily or regular activities that I have also been putting off.
In order to help myself, I am compiling a list of potential inspiration words, phrases, or pictures that I can pull from when I do not have something immediately on my mind. Eventually, the list will be formatted into a tag cloud, and when clicked, the items therein will actually reduce in size the more they are used (so as to give repeats less likelihood).
In addition to graphic design, I am hoping to incorporate a variety of skills ranging from computer-related (like 3-D models and photo manipulation) to non-computer skills like cooking and photography.
In order to be ‘accountable’ to the daily tasks I will use my website (http://lukedary.com) to do small write-ups about my output, and also post links to the site on my Twitter account under #daily365.
I’m excited to give my creativity a bit of a workout, so tune in on January 1st, 2010 for the first installment.
Einstein: The Military Mentality
// December 24th, 2009 // No Comments » // Philosophy
From The American Scholar, New York, Summer, 1947
It seems to me that the decisive point in the situation lies in the fact that the problem before us cannot be viewed as an isolated one. First of all, one may pose the following question: from now on institutions for learning and research will more and more have to be supported by grants from the state, since, for various reasons, private sources will not suffice. Is it at all reasonable that the distribution of the funds raised for these purposes from the taxpayer should be entrusted to the military? To this question every prudent person will certainly answer: “No!” For it is evident that the difficult task of the most beneficent distribution should be placed in the hands of people whose training and life’s work give proof that they know something about science and scholarship.
If reasonable people, nevertheless, favor military agencies for the distribution of a major part of the available funds, the reason for this lies in the fact that they subordinate cultural concerns to their general political outlook. We must then focus our attention on these practical political viewpoints, their origins and their implications. In doing so we shall soon recognize that the problem here under discussion is but one of many, and can only be fully estimated and properly adjudged when placed in a broader framework.
The tendencies we have mentioned are something new for America. They arose when, under the influence of the two World Wars and the consequent concentration of all forces on a military goal, a predominantly military mentality developed, which with the almost sudden victory became even more accentuated. The characteristic feature of this mentality is that people place the importance of what Bertrand Russell so tellingly terms “naked power” far above all other factors which affect the relations between peoples. The Germans, misled by Bismarck’s successes in particular, underwent just such a transformation of their mentality–in consequences of which they were entirely ruined in less than a hundred years.
I must frankly confess that the foreign policy of the United States since the termination of hostilities has reminded me, sometimes irresistibly, of the attitude of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and I know that, independent of me, this analogy has most painfully occurred to others as well. It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc.) are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts–in short, the psychological factors–are considered as unimportant and secondary. Herein lies a certain resemblance to Marxism, at least in so far as its theoretical side alone is kept in view. The individual is degraded to a mere instrument; he becomes “human material.” The normal ends of human aspiration vanish with such a viewpoint. Instead, the military mentality raises “naked power” as a goal in itself–one of the strangest illusions to which men can succumb.
In our time the military mentality is still more dangerous than formerly because the offensive weapons have become much more powerful than the defensive ones. Therefore it leads, by necessity, to preventative war. The general insecurity that goes hand in hand with this results in the sacrifice of the citizen’s civil rights to the supposed welfare of the state. Political witch-hunting, controls of all sorts (e.g., control of teaching and research, of the press, and so forth) appear inevitable, and for this reason do not encounter that popular resistance, which, were it not for the military mentaility, would provide a protection. A reappraisal of all values gradually takes place in so far as everything that does not clearly serve the utopian ends is regarded and treated as inferior.
I see no other way out of prevailing conditions than a far-seeing, honest, and courageous policy with the aim of establishing security on supranational foundations. Let us hope that men will be found, sufficient in number and moral force, to guide the nation on this path so long as a leading role is imposed on her by external circumstances. Then problems such as have been discussed here will cease to exist
Microsoft Case Study
// September 25th, 2009 // No Comments » // Development
I am proud to share that CAPTRUST Financial Advisors was just featured in a newly published Microsoft Case Study.
I started working part-time with CAPTRUST in January of 2008 and was hired for a full-time Application Developer Associate position in June of that year. My initial role was to put together Javascript behaviors and to re-write the fiduciary portal to connect with the recently-installed version 4.0 of Microsoft Dynamics CRM (xRM).
It has been almost two years now, and I have been frequently impressed with the xRM system. As a package, it comes preset with many of the options one would need to manage corporate relationships between clients, employees, and vendors. In my opinion, however, the greatest strength of the software is in the ability to extend it, customize it, and also to integrate external applications or processing with it.
There is a bit of technical detail lost in the case study, and obviously some trade secrets that prevented screenshots, but they have captured the essence of what the last two years have been like. I’ve gotten the chance to work on a lot of great projects, and been able to learn some new things in the process. This case study gives me some personal satisfaction for recognition of what I have done.
Celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Day
// September 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog
I just get a kick out of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so I have added the following script to the bottom of my website, which converts the text on each page into Pirate-speak.
<script src="http://l.yimg.com/d/lib/ydn/js/pirate1252961643.js"></script>The ‘holiday’ starts tomorrow, but I will be leaving my site like this for the weekend. If nothing else, it makes my site a fun read.
Happy ITLAPD!
Customization of Associated Views in MS CRM
// September 17th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Development
Associated views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be enhanced to provide relevant historical information about related entities. By showing inactive records, and giving them a unique visual style, the data takes on new meaning.
Below, I have detailed the process followed to display inactive records, and then format the rows of the associated view (from within the parent entity’s OnLoad event). Please look through what I have done, use it freely, and change it to your liking.
The solution that I have implemented involves attaching to a succession of functions on elements related to the associated view. WARNING! The suggestions that follow do not come with any warranty or guarantee of service, and are most likely not supported by Microsoft. Use at your own risk!
Missing Client.msi File on MS CRM Rollup 4
// June 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Development
The comments do not appear to be working on the CRM team blog, so I wanted to post this here for anyone else that might be having the same struggle that we did. The error message we were facing during auto-update of the CRM Outlook Client was:
Installation package for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for Microsoft Office Outlook cannot be found. Try the installation with a valid copy of the installation package ‘Client.msi’
The installation package for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Update Rollup 4 for the Outlook client has code that looks for the original installation path of the client. When it cannot find the “client.msi” file in the location stored in the registry it will throw an error.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Plugin Tool Export XSLT
// May 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Development
I have been tasked with documenting our Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 plug-ins and workflows, and have created a simple way to visualize the contents exported by the CRM Plugin Registration Tool.
The tool exports details about selected assemblies into XML format. An easy way to create visualizations for XML is to utilize XSLT (XML stylesheets). I have created a simple XSLT, which results in the exported file looking like the image below:
The result of applying the XSLT
The nice thing about this is that using basic XSL the contents of the export can be manipulated into a variety of different visual representations. I have chosen a very simple, tabular layout with the items grouped by entity, then sorted by message, order of execution, and finally by the name of the plug-in. The XSL is posted after the break.
Favorite Photos: Youth Retreats
// March 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Favorites
Collage of Favorite Youth Retreat Photos
I have taken what seems like a lot of photos over the course of my life, and I wanted to share the stories behind nine of my favorites from youth retreats. I realize nine is an odd number, and was going to do ten, but decided that number ten will actually be another blog talking about photographing youth group retreats, so come back after the weekend for my pick from High Definition 2009.
Reflections On 2008
// January 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog
The last day of 2008 and my 29th birthday mark a unique, and special year. I have had some really good times, some really bad times, and a whole lot of times in between. Rather than reiterate events or circumstances I thought that this year I would fill up some space with things that I have learned this year either by way of experience, reading, or second-hand. There is something to be said for a concise list, and so I have restricted my reflections to the top 4 tidbits that I would hope to carry forward.
